American Muslims: Hardworking, well-integrated citizens or rabid threats to America?
What a difference perspective makes! Pew released a poll recently that, depending on your perspective, indicates that American Muslims are either hard-working, well-integrated believers in the American Dream or are rabid terrorists that threaten our way of life. Same poll...different spin.
Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has an excellent analysis of how this Pew poll has driven right wing American nuts into a frenzied hysteria about the Islamic threat from within. Seen through the eyes of those who already feel that Islam is evil, the Pew poll "confirms" their prejudices. Focusing on things like 26% of American Muslims under 30 believe suicide bombings are sometimes justified, the right wing fools on some sites cry out "Holy Shit" and are trying to portray American Muslims as deserving of the prejudice and illegal detentions that some are subject to. Right wing America is SCARED SHITLESS of the Muslims among us.
But the odd thing is, taken from a different perspective, American Muslims appear far more comfortably integrated into American society than Muslims are in any European nation. Looking at the Pew poll of American Muslims from a British perspective, the headline reads: "Muslims 'well integrated' in US." Here are some excerpts from the poll that right wingers in America call "hair-raising" and use to justify their own bigotry: (quotes from the BBC article)
The study by the Pew Research Center says US Muslims - most of whom are immigrants - believe in the American work ethic and reject extremism.
Their income and education levels mirror those of the general US public, according to the survey.
However, most respondents say life has become more difficult for US Muslims since the 11 September attacks...
So while American right wingers scream about American Muslims being extremists, Brits look at the same poll and admire how well American Muslims are INTEGRATED into American society...other than those right wingers bothering them and threatening them with Guantanamo Bay all the time.
Moreover, 71% of Muslim Americans agreed that people could get ahead in the US by working hard - the figure for the general public was 64%.
So, American Muslims believe EVEN MORE in the American Dream than the general public.
"The life situations and attitudes of Muslim Americans stand in contrast with those of Muslim minorities of Western Europe."
Pew Global Attitudes surveys last year in the UK, France, Germany and Spain found that most Muslims there suffered unemployment and felt marginalised.
Living in NYC I, of course, am surrounded by people of pretty much all ethnicities and creeds. I rub shoulders with Orthodox Jews and Muslims daily. We are all pretty much New Yorkers and get along about as well as you can when packed so tightly in a big city. So to us New Yorkers none of this is too surprising. But if you are a right wing idiot, fear is your life-blood. How else can you justify torture and illegal detention if you don't play on extreme fear?
America should be proud that DESPITE the paranoia and right wing rhetoric since 9/11, American Muslims still feel integrated and largely accepted in American society...far more than Muslims in Europe do. So let's hope that the hysterical and irrational paranoia of right wing "pundits" doesn't cloud the overall positive Pew poll that shows our Muslim neighbors as being pretty much like us...except a bit harder working.
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American perspectives | Islam | media spin | Pew poll
Odd?
Submitted by mole333 on 23 May 2007 - 7:49pm.
Who said odd? To me what is odd is the sheer terror that right wingers feel when faced with our Muslim neighbors. THAT is what is so odd.
I will say that the "unparalleled success" you describe is often achieved...but over the xenophobia of those who arrived before. We are seeing that now in the Republican debates where "immigration" engenders almost as much pants-crapping fear as "Muslim" does. But you are right. Despite generation after generation of irrational xenophobia, we do have unparalleled success in absorbing immigrants into a nice cultural stew. We may have committed atrocities towards black forced immigrants and native Americans, and we turned away many who wanted to come (including many Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust) but I know full well that one of our biggest strengths was that we were an immigrant nation. To paraphrase Bill Murry, "We're mutts, we're mutants. We were kicked out of every respectable nation in the world." That is our mixed identity and I am proud to be an American mutt.
It's the extreme right wing that seems to feel that them dern ferners are some kind of threat.
"Who said odd?" You ask.
Submitted by mr.me (not verified) on 23 May 2007 - 11:47pm.
"Who said odd?" You ask.
You did, my friend. Here are your words from the post:
"But the ODD thing is, taken from a different perspective, American Muslims appear far more comfortably integrated into American society than Muslims are in any European nation." [My caps]
I see no "pants crapping fear" about Muslims on the right wing. Please give me some examples. And, for god's sake, be historically responsible and call slaves slaves, not "black forced immigrants."
Ummm...Yeah
Submitted by mole333 on 24 May 2007 - 7:17am.
So like I said in my previous comment to you: the odd thing is how right wing nuts are looking at the SAME POLL and crapping their pants in rabid hysteria while a more reasoned view shows what I (and apparantly you) would take as expected: that Muslim immigrants are fitting in well in America. So you don't need to repeat yourself. My point from start to finish is that right wing nuts are awfully odd.
Follow the link I provide in the diary for more on the pants-crapping. That's what they are there for. And, for good measure, here's another Greenwald analysis of it.
I went to the right-wing
Submitted by tt (not verified) on 26 May 2007 - 6:26pm.
I went to the right-wing link and read the comments. The people there seem more afraid of liberals then of Muslims. "It must be the liberals fault" is their mantra.
Well
Submitted by mole333 on 26 May 2007 - 10:22pm.
Well, fear is really the one thing that holds them together. Fear of Muslims, fear of liberals, fear of blacks, fear of immigrants. Almost everything they talk about has to do with fear. It seems to be the only thing they find motivating.
Liberals tend to focus more on solutions than on fear, even when fear is a part of it. I think global warming is the closest liberals get to being motivated by fear, but even there we quickly shift to solutions. Alternative energy (which usually means local, American jobs), energy efficiency (which saves money) and the like.
Odd?
Why do you find it odd that Muslims in America integrate into the fabric of society more easily than do their European counterparts? America has always been an unparalleled success in terms of immigration. It is, in fact, a pillar of American civilization. Compare that to Europe's endless history of ethnic nationalism and tribal identity. Immigration to the US from Muslim nations is at a 20 year high. It's still the rest of the world's dream to be an American.